KISS TAKES SECOND VICTORY OF WEEKEND IN ACTION-PACKED RACE THREE
Norbert Kiss completed another lights-to-flag victory in the penultimate race of the weekend, untouchable as the action unfolded behind him. This marks the Hungarian’s eighth win of the season, extending his championship lead over his competitors.
For Kiss, it was another textbook race as he converted his sixth pole of the season to another top step finish, but the driver of the race had to be seventh-place finisher Antonio Albacete.
The Spaniard had lined up second on the grid beside Kiss, but a slightly slower reaction to his competitors around him saw Sascha Lenz, Jochen Hahn and Jamie The Spaniard had lined up second on the grid beside Kiss, but a slightly slower reaction to his competitors around him saw Sascha Lenz, Jochen Hahn and Jamie Anderson all closely together going into the first corner. He held on well enough through the first bend, but with better pace off the straight the pack drew Albacete in. The trucks went three wide into Turn 3 and Albacete found himself wide and went straight into the barriers. This has been a hot spot for incidents all weekend, almost claiming Steffi Halm in a first lap incident during Race 2.
The race was red-flagged and Albacete managed to get his damaged truck back to the pit lane. It was a race against the clock for the T Sport Bernau team to get the Spaniard back on track as his left-hand door had been damaged in the crash and wouldn’t remain shut. Incredibly, with the whole paddock showing the #OneTruckFamily mentality, the truck was able to join the back of the formation lap from the pitlane when the race restarted.
The second race restart was much less incident-filled, with the 14 trucks getting off the line cleanly. Kiss disappeared down the road to gain a seven and a half second lead by the chequered flag.
Hahn did a great job of holding off the chasing Lenz and Anderson to keep them behind for the entire 11 laps, taking second ahead of his fellow German.
Jamie Anderson finished fourth on track, right on the tail of Lenz, but was rightly or wrongly handed a ten second penalty for the Albacete incident in the opening lap, which dropped him down the order to ninth, just missing out on reverse grid pole for Race 4.
André Kursim and Steffi Halm were two of the drivers to benefit from Anderson’s penalty, taking fourth and fifth respectively at the chequered flag and making it an all German top five bar winner Kiss.
Lukas Hahn continued that trend down to sixth, taking Promoter’s Cup victory at the same time. This was the third time Lukas Hahn has stood on a Promoter’s Cup podium this weekend, and he’ll surely be looking to make it a clean sweep in Race 4.
Finishing ninth on the track after a great recovery drive, Albacete took seventh at the chequered flag, starting on reverse pole front row beside reverse pole sitter Mark Taylor. Taylor gained two positions from Anderson’s penalty and José Eduardo Rodrigues, who was also handed a ten second penalty, but his was for over speeding.
Due to the gap between Taylor and Steffen Faas in 11th, Rodrigues only lost three positions, falling from seventh to tenth, and dropped to third on the Promoter’s Cup podium behind the Brit. Faas seemed to struggle once again with the pace of his truck on the TOR Poznań circuit, unable to make much headway to the point-scoring pace throughout the race.
John Newell, Johnathan André and Luis Recuenco all had a quiet Race 3, rounding off the grid finishing just outside the overall point scoring positions.
Race 4 is expected to have a small delay on its 15:35 CEST start time as barrier repairs from the Albacete crash are carried out. Keep an eye on the Goodyear FIA European Truck Racing Championship social media channels for the latest updates on this.
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